As an educator and food politics scholar, my mission is to showcase how food, both literally and metaphorically, forms the basis of human meaning-making and identity formation. It organizes our social hierarchies, the development and enforcement of our laws, and the design of our economic systems. Food shapes who we believe we are by telling us what version of ourselves is “right,” what perspective we should take in relating to other people, and what our roles are within larger social, economic, and cultural groups.

Before I started my journey in food, I was addicted to social acceptance (I still am, just less so). I started my career as a very (literally) hungry management consultant in the fashion industry before becoming the youngest MBA candidate at Columbia Business School. Shockingly, resume accolades do not make us truly happy, and I found myself depressed and lost. I decided to take a sabbatical and go "find myself" -- which led me to culinary school, various fancy-schmancy-starred restaurants, and a bizarre set of jobs (ironic highlight: selling cold-pressed juice door-to-door to Silicon Valley VC firms). Through these twists and turns, I parlayed my abilities into a culinary consulting business, which I feel lucky to say has been successful and rewarding while forcing me to grow up and be a professional.

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But I wanted more. At the beginning of 2017, I had an epiphany (at acupuncture) that I should use augmented & virtual reality to make my work more impactful. My experiments with these emerging technologies have helped me narrow in on which social issues I'm passionate about, and that birthed the first iteration of Studio ATAO. The Studio is the nonprofit baby that keeps me up at night as I rack my brain for ways to keep pushing people to connect with the world around them and feel something. Where does this road lead? I'm still not sure. It's been a hell of a ride so far, but there's no saying what excitements and failures it still has in store. What I do know, however, is that I'll never wake up and wonder, "What if?".